


Passport Love

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adventure, Espionage, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7165739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha keeps a scrapbook of all the places she's been with Clint, the memories they've made together, the good and the bad. She knew it was sentimental crap but that's exactly why she wanted to do it. Because it was normal. Because she needed a reminder, when things got bad, that Clint was there to make her smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Budapest, Hungary

**Author's Note:**

> In writing my other Clintasha fic, "Remember Budapest", I found I loved Clintasha but plot is a pain in the ass. So this will be a collection of one shots essentially that are very loosely linked together with absolutely no plot. Just pure Clintasha romance and fluff for your enjoyment (and maybe some angst because I physically can't keep myself from inflicting pain on characters if given the opportunity...) Enjoy! xoxo

**\- Budapest, Hungary**

Natasha first got the idea when they were in Budapest. So many memories buried in Budapest, some incredible, others…well…less so. But it was this one particular trip, after a mission with SHIELD had been wrapped up and Clint whisked her off before Fury could give them additional work, that was the trip that made her start a scrapbook of the places they’d been, the memories that she made with Clint.

It was utter sentimental crap. And that’s why she loved it so much. She’d been with SHIELD for a good long while now so she knew it wasn’t just a passing job like so much of her work used to be.  It was high time she started acting like a semi-normal human being. She didn’t have to be on the run all the time. She didn’t have to keep herself locked away. She could let herself love, despite her training, despite falling back on her old life and reverting back to a machine, cut off, cold, automatic, unfeeling.

It terrified her, that idea to let herself love and be loved in return. And that’s why she had to do this – the scrapbook. Sometimes missions with SHIELD touched dangerously close to memories from her past that she’d much rather forget. When that happened, she needed a reminder around that she wasn’t in that life she’d left behind anymore, she was with Clint, keeping her grounded, keeping her happy, teaching her how to smile, to relax, to let herself simply…breathe.

Clint had rented a small, cozy hotel room at the outskirts of Budapest. The city was gorgeous in the early morning light, with old stone architecture looming against the pale sky. The sun was just beginning to spill in the window with a soft golden glow. This was her favorite time of the day, before Clint was awake and she could watch him, stare at him as long as she wanted. He lay on his stomach, his face turned towards her, half-buried in the pillow, the white sheets pooling around his waist like a puff of clouds. She lay next to him and gently brushed her fingers over his bare back, swirling through the peach colored blush of sunlight that tinged his skin, off into the shadows, then back into the sunlight again.

Natasha kissed his shoulder, allowed her lips to linger there for a moment, breathing in the smell of his skin and his soap. Then she leaned off of the bed, careful to not wake Clint, and found her jeans. She dug around in the pockets until her fingers closed around her phone and very, very, very quietly, she turned back around to face Clint.

The light had spilled into his hair now, creating a slight halo effect she found all too ironic. She’d lost count of how many times he pranked her mercilessly, teased her, pestered her, made her life a living hell regardless of how many times she threatened bodily harm to him. He always danced away, laughing, entirely fearless of her empty threats because she could never deliver them to him with a straight face.

Clint always made her smile. Even on her worst days. And he knew it, using it to his full advantage. The overgrown child.

Natasha snapped the picture. Her phone gave a small wispy shutter-click sound. Clint blinked awake but the damage was already done. The bare hint of a smile played across her lips as she brushed her thumb over the screen. The picture was perfect, soft, hazy, like a dream, exactly as she’d hoped it would come out.

“What’s got you all happy this morning?” Clint asked, his voice rough from sleep.

She loved that smoky, rasping sound of his voice in the morning. She would never, ever, ever, admit that to him for many reasons, one of them being her stubbornness and pride, the other because she would never, ever, ever live it down.

“I just am,” Natasha said, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair with one hand while surreptitiously trying to tuck the phone away under her pillow with her other hand. “I can be happy for no reason, can’t I?”

Clint smiled back in return and looped an arm around her waist, pulling her towards him.

“Didn’t say I was complaining,” he said against her lips as he kissed her, lightly, sweetly. “But you’ve always got a reason for something.”

And he made a grab for the phone. Natasha was quick though and she held it out of his reach. That only encouraged him. Of course. Clint liked a challenge as much as Natasha did and she was so clearly challenging him, egging him on. He leaned into her, pressing her into the mattress as he swiped at the phone again.

It didn’t take long before they were into a wrestling match, peppered with laughter and flavored with far too much training time together on the sparring mats.

In the end, Clint hovered over Natasha as he pinned her arms over her head with one hand.

She totally let him do it too. But she didn’t point that out. Not yet.

He plucked the phone from her fingers. “What have we here?” he said. Then he switched it on. And he paused. He glanced down at her.

“That’s why I was happy,” she said. “Every morning. As long as I get to wake up to you.”

Clint studied her a moment, his gaze serious. Then he rolled his eyes. “Terrible picture. Look at that big shiny delete button.”

“Don’t you dare,” Natasha growled.

He raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing across his lips. In two seconds flat, she flipped him over until she was straddling him and his arms were pinned over his head. She snatched the phone and checked to make sure the picture was still there…

The picture was front and center. He hadn’t deleted it, he’d made it her screensaver.

Now it was her turn to look down at him. A corner of his mouth tipped up, both cheekily playful and seductive at the same time.

“So you can be happy all the time,” he said.

Natasha burst into a wide smile and kissed him, kissed him so hard neither of them could breathe.

They didn’t leave their hotel room much for the three days they were in Budapest. Lazy mornings, endless room service, and nothing but Clint to keep her company was all Natasha needed.

But eventually the trance was broken and Fury called in another mission. Reluctantly, Natasha and Clint gathered up their clothes strewn about the room and made themselves decent. But Clint made sure they took their sweet time, wandering the old cobblestone streets of Budapest with steaming cups of fresh hot coffee before they answered Fury's call.

Natasha broke away for a moment and slipped into a bookstore. There was a slightly worn leather bound journal in the window that had caught her eye but she didn’t want to tell Clint about it, for now at least. When the bookseller placed it in her hands, she ran her fingers over the soft leather, over the spray of small birds frozen in flight, carved into the cover. It was perfect, a little rough around the edges, unassuming, like the warm, comforting embrace of a long lost friend. This would keep her favorite memories quite well.

Natasha lingered over the journal for a few minutes longer. Later that day, when Clint was distracted, she’d print out that picture and slip it between the smooth creamy ivory pages and she’d scrawl across the top of the page, “Budapest, Hungary,” and maybe she’d write a little note or two about the old style romance of the city, about the smell of Clint’s skin, the sleepy rasp of his voice she loved so much. Maybe she’d write something about how safe she felt in that moment, with the sun spilling through Clint’s hair and across his shoulders. How she felt like the rest of the world was far, far away, and she could live forever in that bubble of a moment with the man she loved.

But for now, Natasha stepped out of the bookstore and onto the street again where Clint waited for her. He had his back to her, his hands tucked into his pockets. And when she opened the door, the little bell tinkled. He turned and smiled, held his arm out to her. She tucked her hand into his elbow with the journal held close to her chest as they walked the streets of Budapest and considered their next rendezvous in this wide, wide world.


	2. Antarctica

“I’m going to kill Fury for sticking us out here in the middle of nowhere,” Clint grumbled.

Natasha said nothing and continued setting up the tent. She didn’t mind being out here, didn’t mind the blistering, biting cold. It was just another element of the job she adapted to. Like every other hurdle that came her way, she worked with what she had on hand.

Clint, however, _hated_ being cold. With a vengeance.

“I just don’t see the point,” he continued as he fumbled with a corner of the tent and a pole…and the whole thing looked like a mess. “Captain Popsicle’s the one who was frozen in ice for years. He would be perfect for this.”

Natasha shoved a handful of stakes and a small mallet into his arms. “You really think Steve wants to be reminded of that?”

She elbowed him away from the tent and the pole he was struggling with. The last thing they needed was for Clint to poke a hole in the damn tent.

“Put those stakes in,” she said. “Work out some of that attitude before you get in the tent with me for the night. I don’t want to hear another word once that flap is zipped up.”

Clint sulked in dark silence.

Natasha raised her eyebrows. “What was that? Couldn’t quite hear you.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, his voice forced and clipped.

“That’s better,” she said as she turned back to the tent.

Clint attempted to jab the first stake into the frozen ground without the use of the mallet because he was stubborn as hell like that. But the stake simply bounced off the ice and vibrated in his hand. He growled, picked up the mallet, and really went to town, pounding that stake into the ground.

Natasha and Clint didn’t speak until all six stakes were in the ground and the tent was safely anchored against the wicked bitter cold wind that was picking up, whipping around them, nipping at any bit of exposed skin available.

“Feel better?” Natasha asked.

Clint only grunted.

“Good. I’ll take first watch.”

Without waiting for a response, she plopped down into the snow next to the tent and wrapped her arms around her knees as she stared off across the white desert surrounding them.

She could hear Clint hesitating behind her, thinking really hard about saying something.

Then he thought better of it and shoved into the tent.

It wasn’t ridiculous that Fury had put them out here. The drop coming their way was the usual fare – sensitive information that required expert handling and the utmost care in being delivered into Fury’s safe hands. And because Clint had complained, trying to worm his way out of it, Fury stuck to his guns even further and sealed their fate. They’d been put on worse details than this, but Clint had been griping about the whole ordeal from the start and it made the mission considerably more miserable than it needed to be.

As the sun slipped below the white horizon and the sky turned inky blue black, Natasha watched as the stars winked themselves awake one at a time. She blew a puff of breath into the air just to see it get swallowed by the cold. It wasn’t that bad out here, she thought. With the sky so endless above her, it made the rest of the world seem small and distant in comparison, including herself. Especially herself. To think there wasn’t another human – besides Clint – for miles was oddly…a relief. She never could completely shut off her training that had been ingrained in her at such a young age. She never could completely stop thinking like a spy, though she tried. Clint did help a little in that department, teaching her how to relax, but she wasn’t ever fully at rest, not completely.

Out here…out here in this frozen wasteland, it felt like a blank slate. Just for her.

Maybe she wouldn’t wake Clint for his shift in a few hours. Maybe she’d stay out here all night and breathe in the ice cold air that burned her lungs. Maybe she didn’t want to give up this…purity…that she craved but could never quite attain no matter how hard she worked to wash her hands of her sins…

The hours slipped by, one after the other, and Natasha paid no attention to it. The high scratchy whine of the tent’s zipper broke the silence and Clint stuck his head out, all bundled up against the cold.

“Thought you were gonna wake me for my shift,” he grunted.

Natasha glanced back at him, shrugged, and returned to watching the icy plains around her.

Clint gave a small sigh, shuffled around in the tent for another minute or two, then stepped out and came to sit next to her. He bumped her shoulder with his and when she turned to look at him, he held up a steaming cup.

“Tea,” he said. “’Cause I forgot the coffee.”

Natasha accepted the cup and wrapped her hands around the welcome warmth, the smell of peppermint, chamomile, and jasmine strangely out of place in the sharp cold. Neither of them spoke, allowing the silence and the cold and the white to envelope them, the only two people for miles and miles and miles…

Finally, when the sun was beginning to crest the horizon at their backs, a small blinking red dot drifted from the sky and came to rest in the snow far, far away from where they sat. But neither of them moved for a little while longer, unwilling to shatter this moment, fragile as glass.

Clint stared down into his now empty cup. “I’ve been an ass this whole time,” he mumbled.

Natasha made a small sound neither in agreement or denial.

He sighed. “You could at least give me hell or something.”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

There was a pause as Clint weighed how to respond to that.

“Because I’m going to fetch that beacon, aren’t I?”

Natasha nodded, turned, and gave him a soft smile.

Clint nodded. “Yeah, guess I deserve that.”

He stood, brushed the snow off his pants, handed his empty cup to Natasha, and started walking. It had to be a few miles away at least, and the walk would do him good.

When Clint got back carrying a black case, the sun was well into the sky and Natasha had already started packing up the tent. He dropped the case into the waiting stack of supplies and without even missing a beat, Natasha reached behind her and lobbed a snowball at Clint. It exploded against the side of his head and sent a shower of snow slithering and sifting into every crevice of his clothing.

Clint froze, his shoulders hitched up around his ears, and slowly raised his gaze to face her.

Natasha already had two more snowballs in hand. That walk had taken even longer than she had planned and there had been plenty of time to build up a decent arsenal.

“You didn’t just…” Clint said.

Natasha grinned and swiped another snowball at him. He ducked that one, rolled, scooped up a snowball and pitched it at her, hitting her square in the face.

And the battle began.

Within seconds, they were covered in snow but Natasha wasn’t about to stop. Clint tackled her and they landed in a puff of snow, breathless.

“Does that mean I’m forgiven now?” Clint asked.

Natasha seemed to think about it for a second or two. Clint rolled his eyes and shoved a handful of snow in Natasha’s face.

Hours later, when their SHIELD pilot had picked them up for the long plane ride back to base and Clint had dozed off in the seat next to her, his head resting on her shoulder, Natasha fished out her scrapbook from her backpack.

She sketched the galaxy of stars she’d stared at all night, shining like glitter in the sky.

She saved the tag from her tea bag, still smelling faintly of peppermint, chamomile, and jasmine,  and taped it into her scrapbook, which seemed a little silly, but it had been a peace offering from Clint and she would never regret saving anything that came from Clint.

And she wrote about the blank slate she had been craving for so long, her ledger wiped clean for a few precious hours.


End file.
